


Growing Up With You: Another Suron Collection

by shanibugi



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Childhood, F/M, High School, Plants, Prom, Sabotage, crying at prom, fear of the dark, meet cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanibugi/pseuds/shanibugi
Summary: "What if everything was the same except we were together for the important parts?"





	1. childhood (marshmallows, dad jokes, and by the way, who are you?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey demons, it's ya girl.
> 
> I've been writing in starts and stops since I last posted, and I figured that the only way I can get myself to finish anything is to do the same thing as I did last December and pressure myself to post. So many things have happened since then, and my relationship with fandom and the way I express my fangirling has changed drastically, but I still love Nu'est and Suron to bits, so here's another project, yay.
> 
> It's based on one of the drabbles from the last fic, where they talk how it would have been nice if they grew up together. So this fic will be a series of four? five? short scenes of exactly that. What if Aron and Sujin had known each other since they were kids, went to the same school, knew the same people, saw each other through the big moments. It's basically a way for me to string together all the drabbles I started and never finished haha.
> 
> My goal is to finish this before I see Nu'est again next week, but that's a hard 'don't count on it' lol.
> 
> One last note! When I posted Hearts Be Light, Sujin wasn't even in the tags. Tonight, not only is her name in the tags, this ship itself is in the tags! I take it that the verdict is that it's okay to write about this now??? Again, if I make any missteps or cross any lines, please let me know.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _we don't notice any time pass, we don't notice anything_  
(we are going to be friends - the white stripes)

It was fifteen minutes to midnight and Aron really really needed to pee. He’d been lying there for a good half hour, thinking of how to navigate the lumps of bodies that had landlocked him into a corner of the room. He briefly considered just waiting it out until morning and going back to sleep, but the four bottles of cola he’d consumed in a record time of twenty minutes was not having any of it. Eventually, he decided his bladder was worth the risk of stepping on some of his new friends’ fingers.

It was lucky that they’d laid out their sleeping mats before settling down to watch one of the Chucky films, during which they’d all proceeded to pass out one by one. (All of them except Minhyun, who slept on his bed because well, it was his bed, but also because the floor grossed him out.) They’d planned to stay up later, but the sugar had made quick work of their thirteen-year-old systems. Even Minki, who was already screaming his lungs out during the first fifteen minutes, had fallen fast asleep before any major onscreen deaths.

This set-up made it easier to tiptoe over everyone, at least. He managed to reach the door without a hitch, save nearly tripping over Jonghyun’s leg.

Slowly, Aron put his hand on the doorknob and pulled the door open. It let out a thin eerie creak. He winced and quickly looked back into the dark room. Four sleeping figures lay silent and still, save for the rise and fall of their chests. He dared to open the door further, its hinges releasing a louder creak. In the darkness, Dongho rolled over, flinging his arm out in a wide arc before settling into a new position with Jonghyun’s outstretched foot dangerouly close to his face.

Aron stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He looked down the dark hallway. He knew that it ended with the kitchen, and the bathroom was off in a hallway to the right. Right?

He’d only ever been to Minhyun’s house during daytime, and even then only a few times before. The darkness made everything confusing, and larger somehow than they were when he last saw them. The doors seemed taller, the hallway longer. He was suddenly aware of how cold the wooden floor felt against his bare feet. An unbidden shiver traveled down his spine, reminding him of one thing: He really really had to pee.

He shuffled forward, knowing that it was stupid to be scared but not knowing how to make the feeling go away. He couldn’t tell what was casting those shadows on the wall. It could be a clock, or a vase, or a demonic serial killer possessed doll. What if that thing that he thought was a shoe rack was actually Chucky with a knife in hand, ready to gouge out his insides?

He reached the end of the hallway slightly out of breath, but happy that he hadn’t been murdered. Now to turn the corner and--

A sudden creak, followed by yellow light, came from the kitchen.

A strangled, unattractive sound escaped him and he took a step backwards, falling into the shoe rack he was suspecting of being a toy serial killer moments ago. Boots and sneakers and flats fell around him, burying him in a pile of mismatched shoes, rainboots in his lap, a sharp heel poking into his butt.

“You’re going to wake my parents up.”

He looked up. Around the kitchen counter came a girl about his age, holding a glass of water in one hand. She looked wary and aggressive at the same time, like an animal whose nest had been disturbed. 

“Sorry. I just had to go to the bathroom,” he said, trying to extricate himself from the mess he’d created for himself.

“It’s over there.”

There was an awkward moment where he mentally debated what to do next, but somehow, the call of nature was nothing against this girl’s tiny judgy eyes and late night water drinking habits. He got to work putting every shoe back in close perfect alignment, just in case an obsessive cleaning streak ran in the family. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen, drawers rolling in and out, chip bags crinking, making him oddly self-conscious.

After finally putting everything back, he tried to run to the bathroom as casually as he could. He stumbled inside, barely getting his pajama bottoms down in time, and standing there in what should have been a moment of victory, he knew he was unsuccessful.

When he came back out, she was sitting on the floor in front of the TV with a bowl of marshmallows beside her.

It felt weird to go back to sleep like nothing happened, and a part of him--the part that was starting to see girls as differently functioning human beings--didn’t want her last image of him to be him sprinting to the bathroom like a fool. So he ended up dawdling awkwardly behind the couch, looking at the screen more than actually watching TV. He couldn’t understand what the MCs were talking about--he‘d only been in Korea a little less than a year--but it seemed to be a late night variety show of sorts. where the hosts were doing everything they could to embarrass their guests.

“So...you’re Minhyun’s sister?” he said at last, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She turned to look at him. Those eyes again.

“Yeah.”

“Um, why are you still awake?”

There was a long moment before she answered, and when she did, he could tell she didn’t want to. It wasn’t because she was the wary, aggressive animal he thought she was. She was just embarrassed.

“I can’t sleep when there are other people in the house,” she said in a small voice.

“Oh.” He didn’t know what to say to that. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said quickly. She shrugged and moved the bowl of marshmallows in his direction. “Do you want some?”

The gesture surprised him, but he wasn’t about to say no to sweets. He sat next to her on the rug, reached into the bowl, and picked out a huge white marshmallow. He was midchew before he noticed her looking at him.

“You can’t say much, can you?” she said, not impolitely. “I mean, you’re not from here.”

“Um, yeah,” he said around the fluff in his mouth. “I’m still learning.”

“Do you know how to curse yet?” she said in the same polite tone.

He swallowed and laughed. “Yeah, some. ‘Fuck’ is one of the first things I learned.”

“Did Minhyun teach you that?”

“No, I learned it before I met him,” he said defensively.

She smiled. “What else do you know?”

She began to quiz him on random Korean curse words, and he did his best to answer everything. There was something about this girl that made him want to impress her. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to look stupid again. On her part, she’d explain the jokes the hosts were cracking on TV, teaching him the mechanics behind the wordplay of dad jokes and acrostic poems. Together, they ate all the marshmallows until Aron could feel the stretch of his stomach.

When the show began to roll its ending credits, Sujin announced, “I’m getting tired. You can keep watching if you want.”

“No, I’ll go to sleep too,” he said, scrambling to his feet.

They turned off the TV and put the bowl in the sink. Everything was quiet and dark again.

An awkwardness settled between them as they walked back to the hallway that branched off into their rooms. Aron couldn’t understand it. It was barely thirty seconds ago when they were laughing at bad jokes (he was laughing, she was judging him) and eating sweet junk food. Why was it so weird all of a sudden?

“So uh, good night,” he said, and instantly regretted it.

_What was that? That’s something you tell your mom, not a girl you just met. And she’s not a _girl_ girl. She’s your friend’s sister. Stop being weird._

She didn’t seem bothered though. “Night,” she replied, already turning away from him.

“I’m sorry you can’t sleep.”

_Stop talking right now. Stop. Stop. Stop._

She turned around. Her door was already open, and he tried to look beyond but couldn’t. There was another long moment before she answered.

“It’s okay, I know you now. I can sleep.”

She might have been smiling, but it was too dark to see.


	2. teenagers (scaring the living shit out of themselves at prom)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _mahal, tanging ikaw ang nais kong kasayaw / love, you are the only one i want to dance with_  
(prom - ebe dancel)

The science lab was three floors above the auditorium, but Sujin could still feel the muffled bass thumping through the cement floor. Each beat sent threads of sound thrumming through her outstretched legs. She brought her knees close to her chest.

This side of the laboratory had that huge picture window that displayed petrified animal embryos, and she figured that would be enough to keep people away. Not even the friskiest of high school couples would pass this way. No one wanted to accidentally lock eyes with a dead frog while making out. She was safe here.

She ducked her head into her arms and tried to ignore the roaring in her chest. People would probably start leaving in about two hours. She could stay here that long, make friends with the animal carcasses floating in formaldehyde. Hell, she could probably spend the night in this cold as fuck corridor. She told Minhyun not to wait up anyway because she had planned to go to the afterparty with her friends.

She wondered if they knew what happened, if they were looking for her. She wondered if he was looking for her.

“Hey.”

She was startled out of her self-pity by a voice, and for a second, she hoped that it was him. He’d come to find her to say he was sorry, it was all a misunderstanding, come back and we’ll dance until there isn’t anyone left.

But it wasn’t.

“What’re you doing here?” Aron said.

It took her a second to recognize him because his hair was pushed up to show his forehead. He was dressed in a black suit that made him look older and neater than he usually did when he was goofing around with Minhyun and their friends. She was suddenly aware of the horrid glittery monstrosity of about twenty layers of tulle that her mother picked out for her. She rubbed her arms awkwardly and avoided eye contact.

“Um, waiting for this shitshow to be over,” she replied, staring at the wall of specimens in front of her.

“Oh. That’s cool.”

Silence. Three floors beneath them, the DJ changed tracks. A jazzy remix of an old song floated up through the empty hallway

“Can I wait with you?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He put his back to the wall and sunk to the floor beside her. She noticed that the sleeves of his jacket went past his wrists, all the way to the base of his thumb. The odd length bothered her for some reason, but she ignored the urge to tell him to roll up his sleeves properly.

They sat in silence for a few long moments, letting the indistinct warbling below them fill up the darkness. Sujin’s insides still felt like they’d been ground up into mush, but having someone else there was oddly comforting, like there was something anchoring her to the real world, preventing her thoughts from spiraling away as they so often did.

And maybe it helped that it was Aron who found her staring at frogs in the middle of a dark hallway on prom night. They weren’t really friends, but they’d known each other pre-puberty. He’d been over for dinner at their house enough times for her not to be awkward eating around him. That counted for something.

And she always felt like he saw her in a certain way--cool and smart and unaffected by anything. He was older but he talked to her like he did with his other friends. That meant something too.

She wanted that impression to continue, so despite her ground up insides, she spoke first.

“So did you just happen to be passing by to gaze at some lovely frog embryos or was there anything else you wanted to do?”

“Well, I do love a good frog embryo,” he said. “But no, I was, uh--I was looking for you.”

She looked at him, genuinely confused. “Why?”

“No reason,” he said quickly, staring straight ahead. “It was just getting boring in there. Minki’d started challenging the kids at the next table to a dance contest and I’m pretty sure Jonghyun’s been staring at a cupcake for the past half hour, so you know...”

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

“I know you like your frog embryos.”

Before she remembered that she felt terrible, Sujin smiled. It felt good for a fraction of a split second.

Then Aron looked at her for the first time that night. With his voice low and serious and sounding like he genuinely gave a shit, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Her voice broke, then everything else followed. Something in her collapsed. Huge sobs wracked her shoulders and chest. She ducked her head in her hands and let everything wash over her. Somewhere in the mess, a thought floated to the surface of her mind: So much for being smart and cool and unaffected. 

After far too long, when her lungs had been emptied and all that was left was embarrassment and ruined makeup, she raised her head, hands still covering most of her face.

Almost instantly, she broke out laughing again, because the look on Aron’s face was so hilariously panicked, she thought he was about to call the police or the fire station or something. Another wave of emotion overtook her, a messy, confusing outpouring of tears and laughter bursting uncontrollably from a place inside her she didn’t know existed.

“Sorry, it’s just--” she started, trying to speak. “It’s just--it’s nothing, I’m sorry.”

“This is nothing?” he exclaimed. He looked--understandably--even more alarmed at her sudden laughter.

“It’s just a guy,” she said when she had mostly recovered. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Which guy?”

“You don’t know him,” she said, brushing it off. It truly didn’t matter anymore. At least, she didn’t want it to. She felt like the heaviness of a few hours earlier had finally started to dissolve and she didn’t understand why she’d gotten so upset in the first place.

“Which guy?” he repeated.

“The guy I was supposed to come here with,” she said carefully. “He called this morning saying he couldn’t come, then I saw him with this other girl from the other class in an...interesting position. It’s whatever. I told you, it doesn’t matter.”

“You want to go wreck his shit?”

“What?”

“Steal his gym clothes. Spray paint his desk. Step on his science project. I have thumbtacks in my locker from that one art project. I’m sure we can come up with something.”

“No, what? Wait.” Sujin put her hands out in front of her to steady herself, even if she was still sitting on the cold cement floor in her ugly, too sparkly dress. “It’s just a stupid boy. We don’t have to do anything.”

“This asshole made you cry. I’ve never seen you cry about anything. Definitely not like that. It matters.”

At that moment, all the emotions of that night had piled up and twisted together, and she couldn’t tell one from the other anymore. Sure, some asshole made her cry, but there was this other asshole who made her laugh too. Here was a boy in a fucking suit who wanted to avenge her goddamn honor, and she was sixteen with incomprehensible feelings, and how could she have said no?

After a brief discussion of their grand plan, they made their way to the back of the high school building, where a corner of the school garden was reserved for the juniors’ yearly project. Each student was meant to look after one plant of their choice over the course of an entire school year. It was supposed to teach them both basic biological principles, practical life skills, and responsibility, which both of them agreed was a load of bullshit.

Sujin looked at the digital display on Aron’s watch. It was almost 10pm. She could’ve been in the auditorium, eating too much dessert and gossiping about who’d kissed who with all her friends, but instead she was barefoot with her brother’s best friend, stalking rows of plants looking for some tomatoes to exact her revenge upon.

It wasn’t a bad trade off. She’d gotten to ditch her heels, at least. The dirt and grass squelching between her toes wasn’t as unpleasant as she thought it would be. They passed herbs and flowers until they reached the plot dedicated to vegetables.

“Is it this one?” Aron called, a few meters ahead of her. Each crop was conveniently labeled with the scientific name of the plant in capital letters, and just below it, the words “Cared for by:” followed by the name of the student.

She squinted at the laminated card, and replied, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Someone might see us.”

“Like who? There’s no one around.”

“I heard the janitor spies on kids from behind the sunflowers,” Sujin replied, still whispering.

“It’s prom night. Someone is constantly throwing up somewhere. I’m sure Mr. jung is plenty busy.”

She wasn’t particularly convinced that any amount of vomit would save them if a teacher were to uncover their plans of botanical sabotage, but was saved the stress of overthinking when Aron asked, “So, how do you want to do this?”

She stared at him. “_You_ wanted to do this. I just agreed to your plan.”

“It’s not like I’ve done this before,” he retorted.

“I don’t know, just step on it or something.”

He lifted a grimy, dirt covered foot and positioned it directly over the tomato plant, which already had a few tiny red bulbs clinging onto its branches. Neither of them had really thought this through, and he looked understandably uncertain. Sujin almost felt sorry for him.

She started wondering if there was still time to stop this before someone did catch them. Would they call their parents? She had a spotless record, what if this ruined her chances of getting into a good college? Or what if they got away with it, but tomorrow they’d wake up to a school-wide witch hunt for the perpetrators of this tomato-based crime? What if they don’t get caught until ten years later, when they’d adults and someone would dig this up and say they had a history of vandalism and they’d lose their jobs? This sort of thing could ruin an idol’s career, or at least keep the gossip columns going for a good weekend.

“I’m going to do it!” he announced.

“Wait!”

The sound of her voice clearly startled him and he wobbled dangerously on one foot. Sujin instinctively flung her hand out to steady him. He grabbed it and she felt herself being pulled forward. She shut her eyes, ready for the inevitable crash into leaves and twigs and mulch, but it didn’t come.

Instead, her face felt the soft cloth of his shirt.

It lasted for not even a second because she pulled away instantly--because she was cool and smart and unaffected by anything--but that not-second had given her both too much information and not enough. She couldn’t un-feel his chest against her cheek, or un-smell his fading cologne. When she extricated herself from him and took a large step back, his hand was still firmly gripping hers, and even after she let go, that was the feeling that stayed longest of all.

“I just...I’m hungry,” she said, wanting to immediately destroy whatever silence was beginning to form. She forced herself to stare intensely beyond his shoulder to the entrance of the school parking lot.

“What?” he said. The slight waver in his voice comforted her.

“Aren’t you hungry? We should eat.” she said quickly. “There’s a Japanese restaurant nearby that we can walk to.”

Still firmly not looking at him, she lifted the dirt-stained hem of her dress and marched out of the vegetable patch, stopping only to pick up her shoes on the way out. She wished that the school project had them take care of puppies instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Korea doesn't have prom. I tried to turn it into a talent show but it didn't work as well, so let's pretend this is an international school where they have prom.
> 
> I meant to have this up last week but I got carried away and wrote an entirely different ending before scrapping it and going back to my originally planned ending with the added kdrama 'oops I fell and now we're going to almost kiss but it's too early for that so nah' trope. I hope it's not terrible!!
> 
> As expected, my writing schedule has been completely derailed by the Nu'est concert (which was the best night of my life, yes thank you for asking), but it's fine, I'm slowly getting my life back together. I still have every intention of writing the next three parts of this fic. It's just going to take time. Thank you to everyone who read the first part! Each part is meant to be able to be read as a standalone as well as part of the series, so y'know, you can stop reading at any time haha.


End file.
